[citation needed] Along with Ford Prefect, Arthur Dent barely escapes from Earth as it is demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass.

[2] In most versions of the series, Arthur and Ford eventually find themselves back on Earth, but two million years in the past, marooned with a third of the Golgafrincham population (consisting of hairdressers, account executives, film-makers, security guards, telephone sanitisers, and the like).

[citation needed] The original radio series and the television series end at this point, although a second radio series was made in which Ford and Arthur are rescued by Ford's cousin Zaphod Beeblebrox and have further adventures, and which ends with Arthur stealing Zaphod's spaceship, the Heart of Gold (which Zaphod had himself stolen) and striking out with only Marvin the Paranoid Android, Eddie the shipboard computer, a cloned archaeologist named Lintilla, a bunch of appliances with Genuine People Personalities, and a rather battered copy of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for companionship.

The final ending here consists of the Babel fish carried by Arthur, Trillian, Ford, and Random having a sense for self-preservation, i.e. at the last minute they teleport the person they are inhabiting, and anyone nearby (namely Tricia McMillan), to safety.

[citation needed] Arthur dies in the fifth installment of the book series, Mostly Harmless, in a club called Beta (owned by Stavro Mueller) when the Earth and all its duplicates are seemingly destroyed by the Grebulons.

[citation needed] In And Another Thing..., written by Eoin Colfer, Arthur is put into a dream sequence (presumably referring to the epilogue of the radio series) and then frozen in time by the Guide Mk.2, allowing him to experience decades of life on a peaceful beach.

In the end, Arthur travels through hyperspace on an interstellar passenger ship; he looks to the seat next to him to find Fenchurch sitting there talking to him, but he fades out of her dimension and into a new one.